Yes, I am aware of the fact that it’s currently 1:43 in the morning as I write this. Yes, I’m aware that I have class, work, a radio show, and a public speech to deliver today. However; when God puts something on my heart, I can’t go to bed and be at peace until I let it out, so here goes nothing.
As a 23 year old, I spend a decent amount of time on social media. Honestly, more time than I should, but that’s beside the point. I’ve been seeing a LOT of things lately about our Goverment shut down, and cutting of goverment benefits that affect thousands of Americans. The division among people on this topic truly breaks my heart. You have one side saying “People just need to go out and get jobs and EARN their food”, then you have the opposite side saying “Food is a basic necessity that should be provided by the Goverment regardless of ability to work”. In all honesty, I don’t really have a take or a side on this, because in my humble opinion, scripture doesn’t either. What Scripture DOES offer though, is practical advice on how to handle all this in the simplest form possible.
It comes from the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 12, verses 30 and 31, and it says- 30 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
That’s it. Pure and Simple. That right there is the most practical thing we can do at a time like this, is simply love our neighbors as ourselves. It goes back to the Golden rule that we all learned in elementary school to “Treat others as you would want to be treated”. People make it out to be a lot more complex than it needs to be. When I was younger, I remember a time when a neighbor was baking something but ran out of sugar, so she called my Mom and my mom went and took her some sugar out of our pantry. I think that kind of thing is what we need to get back to nowadays as a society. The simplicity of neighbors loving neighbors, and neighbors helping each other out. Am I perfect at it? Absolutely not, nobody is. What counts though is our efforts.
What does that look like practically? If you have something extra, share what you have. If you have a gift or a talent or an ability that could be of use to someone else, SHARE it! We all have SOMETHING to give and I think we’re living in a time where we need to give what we have more than ever. It doesn’t have to be big or extravegent, God sees even the littlest things like handing your cart off to a stranger at Aldi’s and forgetting about the quarter.
You see, God blesses each and every one of us with different things and calls us to use those to Love our neighbors and Glorify him through that. To really put it into perspective; we can all pay a small price to do something nice for someone else because God paid the ultimate price and did something REALLY nice for each and every one of us by sending his son to die on a cross so that our sins would be forgiven.
Love Y’all,
- Jonathan